Television

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Professor examines DOJ shuttering of forensic science commission

Erin
E. Murphy, a professor at New York University School of Law, is the author
of “Inside
the Cell: The Dark Side of Forensic D.N.A.” wrote an op-ed for the New York
Times on the DOJ shutting down the National Commission of Forensic Science,
here is an excerpt:

Prosecutors applauded the
April 10 announcement by
Attorney General Jeff Sessions that the Department of Justice was disbanding
the nonpartisan National Commission on Forensic Science and returning forensic
science to law enforcement control. In the same statement, Mr. Sessions
suspended the department’s review of closed cases for inaccurate or unsupported
statements by forensic analysts, which regularly occur in fields as diverse as
firearm and handwriting identification, and hair, fiber, shoe, bite mark and
tire tread matching, and even fingerprinting analysis.

If all you knew about forensic science was what you
saw on television, you might shrug off this news, believing that only the most
sophisticated and well-researched scientific evidence is used to solve and
prove crimes. But reality is different.

D.N.A.-exoneration cases have exposed deep flaws in
the criminal justice system’s use of forensic science. Reforms have not come
easy, but slow and plodding progress has been made. In 2005, the F.B.I.said that
it would no longer conduct bullet-lead examinations after a review panel found
matches essentially meaningless. A blue-ribbon panel of the National Academy of
Sciences raised the same concern in a 2009 report that
found nearly every familiar staple of forensic science scientifically unsound.

Prompted in part by that report, the Justice
Department initiated a review of thousands of cases involving microscopic
matching of hair samples. In 2015, the F.B.I.
announced its shocking initial findings: In 96 percent of cases,
analysts gave erroneous testimony. At a meeting last spring of the commission
that Mr. Sessions just disbanded, the department said it
would expand the view to include a wider array of forensic disciplines.

With the announcement by Mr. Sessions, this momentum
comes to a screeching halt. Although forensic science would seem a low priority
for an incoming attorney general, it is not altogether surprising that it was
in Mr. Sessions’s sights. As a senator (and former prosecutor), Mr. Sessions
made forensic science a priority. He sponsored and shepherded to passage the Paul
Coverdell National Forensic Science Improvement Act of 2000, which remains
the signature federal funding mechanism for state all-purpose forensic labs.
That might suggest that Mr. Sessions would care about the integrity of forensic
science, but his enthusiasm has been for more — not better — forensic
evidence. When the National Academy of Sciences’ scathing report was released,
Senator Sessions simply waved it away, remarking, “I don’t think we should
suggest that those proven scientific principles that we’ve been using for
decades are somehow uncertain” — ignoring the panel of experts who had
concluded just that.

About Matt

An analysis of crime and punishment from the perspective of a former prosecutor and current criminal justice practitioner.
The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or postions of any county, state or federal agency.